Rewarded By God

Rewarded By God

 

 

The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness; He repaid me according to the cleanness of my hands.  For I have kept the ways of the Lord and have not turned from my God to wickedness.  Indeed, I have kept all His ordinances in mind and have not disregarded His statutes.  I was blameless toward Him and kept myself from sinning.  So the Lord repaid me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in His sight.--------Psalm 18:20-24

 

 

The Psalmist is proclaiming the results of his living a RIGHTEOUS, CLEAN life before the Almighty God.  He says that “The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness; He repaid me according to the cleanness of my hands.”  Basically, what he is saying is that God rewarded him because of his RIGHTEOUS and CLEAN living.  Old Testament saints had to work hard at this, because their ONLY way of being RIGHTEOUS and CLEAN before God was to offer sacrifices continually for their sins.  Today, Christians are RIGHTEOUS and CLEAN because of the ONE time SACRIFICE of God’s only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. 

 

When God looks at the heart of a TRUE BELIEVER, He sees a heart that has been cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ and He doesn’t see OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS, but He sees the RIGHTEOUSNESS of Christ in us.  The Bible tells us that OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS is like filthy, stinking, putrid rags, but the RIGHTEOUSNESS of Christ is PURE, UNDEFILED RIGHTEOUSNESS .  When we come to Christ for our SALVATION then we receive His RIGHTEOUSNESS because of His work on the cross for the SALVATION of mankind’s soul.

 

But our CLEANNESS is a work in progress, we MUST work at being blameless and keeping ourselves from sinning against God and His laws by NOT getting involved with things that would cause us to sin.  We must be willing to confess our sins to Him, whenever we stumble and fall and He will be FAITHFUL and JUST to FORGIVE us of our sins.  Our reward from Him is our HOPE of Heaven and our ADOPTION into His family for ALL of ETERNITY. 

 

If you have not given your HEART and LIFE to God, then you have NOT been rewarded by Him.  You may have received EARTHLY accolades and have a lot of EARTHLY rewards built up, but you can’t take them with you when you leave this world and they are ONLY TEMPORARY, what is done for Christ is what will be EVERLASTING.  So if you have not given your HEART and LIFE to Him then you have NO REWARDS for the after-life.  And where you are headed, you won’t care if you have any or not, because you will be to consumed with your misery, pain, torment and torture, but you have the opportunity to come to the Lord  for SALVATION and be CLEANSED from ALL of your sins by:  CONFESSING your sins to God and asking Him for His FORGIVENESS, BELIEVING with ALL your HEART, that Jesus died for YOU and is ALIVE in Heaven, making intercession for you, before God, then ACCEPT His gift of SALVATION and receive His RIGHTEOUSNESS and be REWARDED by Him.  Do it NOW, while you STILL can.  He’s waiting!!!